PLACING THE VALUE IN URBAN RETAIL

Value Retail News, May 2017 • Guest Column

By Karen E. Fluharty

We’ve seen the headlines regarding the challenges of the full-price, brick-and-mortar retail industry. As a majority of U.S. media continues to frame our current retail climate as bleak and unrecoverable, specifically reporting on the slowing of new project groundbreakings, store expansions and the lack of newly-conceived retail concepts, we, as an industry, believe outlet remains a viable retail channel. In fact, according to Wall Street Journal Reporter Esther Fung, “one corner of the industry is thriving: outlet centers."